I filled out a huge questionnaire at center camp last year. I saw the afterburn report last week, but it didn't have census data in it. Anyone know where the census data ends up? Would be very interesting to see, as there were a lot of detailed questions in there!

there is nothing in heaven or earth that will stop me now. i am THAT ornery.

i've got a new 100w bullhorn, and i'm SO gonna use it.

I know it takes all kinds, but really, you'd think there would be less douches in the BM community.

you aint seen nothing yet.
i suggest you fatten up your skin, canuck, because as i always like to say

FUCK EM' IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE!

now why dont you just hit ignore, and i'll go away, at least in Virtual Land.

but i'll tell you what what, you know where i'll be, the BIG FUCKING DOME, and tipis at the corner of 10 and splade...come call me a dickhead to my face, and i might get you cold beer if you say it with a smile, or i might knock your ass out if you dont, unless your too canadian to realize that your reactions to my funnin' are TOTALLY douchy, hence, you are what you eat, and you are just another douche, of which you so describe.

god i love that word, douche....maybe because it was verboten at a friends house, and the one time i got caught i got spanked, and my friends mom was REALLY hot, but i digress.

you know what drutter, after scanning your other posts, especially this one..

The rules don't say "no being ticked off" so I think this post is legit. :p Thank you, moderators, for all you do for the forums.

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I've noticed a few things when checking out the ticket buying process this year. The main thing I noticed were the fees.- $4.50 processing fee per ticket- $1 handling fee per ticket- up to $30 shipping fee per ticket

I want to know who is getting $5.50 per ticket to push the "print" button to put the buyer's name and address on the envelope. If they can push the button once a second, does that mean they're making roughly $20,000 an hour? In my opinion, $4.50 (plus another dollar for good measure I guess) is too much to pay for handling. Certainly someone would volunteer to push the button, and save Burners nearly THREE HUNDRED GRAND per year.

And then there's the shipping fee. I ship ticket-like collectibles (game cards, if you must know) all around the continent and world, and have done so for years. I know the postal system both in the US and in Canada. No, it doesn't take $30 to get a ticket to somebody, not even if you put tracking, insurance, bubble wrap, signature confirmation, and a bunch of fuel surcharges on top of it. In fact, a one cent (yes, one cent) plain white envelope and a 60 cent (sixty cents, I'm not kidding here) stamp will get a ticket (in fact, up to about 30 or 40 of them) to anywhere in North America, with a 99.999% accuracy. So why the $12 or $30 charge? The options SHOULD be:

That would more than cover the costs of shipping, and would likely even result in leftover funds.

Just for fun, what's a $30 fee multiplied by 50,000 tickets? $1.5 million.

Another issue: The recession/depression has taken spendable money out of Burner's pockets this year. At the same time, it has driven down the cost of everything the Burning Man team needs to put on the event. With their costs falling, and our pockets empty, why did ticket prices go up so drastically this year?

I saw it said elsewhere, and I'll paraphrase it here. If Burners find out that the organizers are raking in millions, which they appear to be, many volunteers and hardcore performers and artists will stop supporting the event. Who wants to put tens of thousands into an art car to support an event run by profiteers? Many fear the event will suffer greatly. Many fear it already has and is. I honestly don't care about the money as much as I care about the event. I believe it's true that creativity and inspiration will wither as people realize they're putting their hard work and money into someone else's pocket. Sad

If you don't believe me that they're making money off us, just view the main ticket page - they say it themselves.

Quote:Did you know that the first 9,000 tickets are sold at below the cost per person to produce the event?

9000 are sold below cost, which means 41000 are sold above cost.That means it costs them between $210 and $240 per Burner to provide portapotties, fireworks, and so on. Let's say it's right in the middle, at $225. What's the average ticket price paid?

So they're making $37.20 profit off each person, which is just under two million dollars total, per year. This matches another estimate of two million I came up with using different known information.

Let's say we call that two million the organizers' bonus. Fine, you guys worked hard, you deserve your pay as well as another two million.

But what about the fees? Three hundred thousand on handling/processing fees which are completely unnecessary plus one and a half million on overpriced shipping fees.

Two million profit on the tickets, and nearly that much profit again on the fees. I don't know how many full time employees there are, maybe 30? If so, and they split the above profits up evenly, that's $127,000 each on top of their pay.

For the love of everything covered in playa dust, don't do this to Burning Man. This is only my second year and I don't want to see it go down like this. Sad

Your thoughts welcome! Smile

i have decided that you are a fucknut.

you ask stupid questions, and you whine like a long island teenage girl who cant go to the mall on saturday.

Drutter wrote:This is only my second year and I don't want to see it go down like this.

There's nothing quite like the shrill voice of one year's experience.

Nice quote-hack. But seriously, do you have a point?

I'm pretty disgusted right now. I have a feeling the rude treatment people get around here has some kind of purpose, I just don't know what. Trying to keep the yahoos away? Trying to keep the size of the community down? Really, help me out, because the behaviour of Burners here on eplaya is nothing like what I've experienced before in BRC.

FYI I have a long history with Burning Man. I don't show up just for the burn and to get pissed and smash things. I get as much out of it as I can, and while I don't expect to be treated nicely here (this is the internet after all), some amount of common decency would be great. If you all just want to upset other people and create tension and angst as much as possible, I dunno, maybe you don't belong at BM. It's never been about that, in my experience. Perhaps you just think that this being the internet, you can be mean and hurtful and hey, you don't have to look the person in the face, so surely it's okay?!